Anyone born after 1970 is quite spoiled...we grew up in a fully color world: TV was in color, films were in color and photos were in color. Sure every now and then someone pulls something artistic, but those from around that time onward would never know a black and white world.
A study done found kids who grew up on black and white TV and black and white films dreamt mostly in black and white; while kids who grew up in pure color well...dreamt in color. I don't think in my entire life I've ever dreamt in black and white. My 11 year old sister was amazed films even used to BE in black and white. Of course she also didn't know what a record or Marilyn Monroe was (and was surprised motorcycles existed in the "Sunset Blvd" era.) Oddly she did know who Fay Wray was...
But what is so odd about those dreaming/thinking statistics is when you throw in classic film to a modern mind. I get very lost in my silents: I don't realize they're silent or black and white. To me its a living, breathing film and not one bit foreign or odd. I guess it's a bit like fluently speaking and thinking in Italian while going home and speaking your native English.
But there is one arena that always boggles my mind and I have thought about this a few times: when I think of events, or people from that era (such as reading a story or biography)...how do I see it? Honestly I have no clue, no matter how daft that sounds. I guess I visualize it in color, but not in a way that makes me go 'hey you're speaking color to something you've only seen in black and white!'
Black and white film gives such a (to the modern eye) nostalgic air. It's that time, place and era...we accept it and its beautiful in some sort of surreal way like watching Garbo in action. As I've said before watching Garbo in a silent is too powerful...her beauty overpowers anything by sheer witchcraft-ery (and lighting). But Garbo in a talkie (with different black and white aesthetics) is a whole different matter. Had she made a color film the allure probably would have been taken down another notch.
Unless you had the chance to grow up in the 20s, or knew a silent star in their later years, you don't realize how powerful that color image is. Suddenly they become more real, more modern, and more human. And I mean that in the most sincere and best way possible. Even better: not only do they become more 'real' and accessible, but the fashions do as well. Sure you can imagine Mary Pickford in color, but can you imagine what her dress in Coquette really looked like? Those hats and dresses had such gorgeous colors, lost to guesses and the ages now. Same for hair and make up (though you can tell in black and white I swear up and down bonafide color film shows just how hard and unmovable those hair dos were!)
I think its such a shame color film stopped before it began. Color, sound, and film were all invented around the same time (circa 1895). But the cheapest and easiest thing to do was just run film naked: no sound, no color. There's color films from 1902 but they aren't as good...the early processes left few colors possible.
In the early 1920s Technicolor had advance to 'Process 2' which threw red and green into the mix. Douglas Fairbanks was VERY interested in moving film into color (of note D.W. Griffith was adding sound to film around this time) but it was just too expensive and experimental...he had to wait it out. In the meantime "Toll of the Sea" (1922) was made almost as a commercial for the process. Unfortunately it was again to cost prohibitive.
Seeing "Toll of the Sea" is extremely trippy. Anna May Wong is gorgeous. And honestly it reminded me of a 1960s TV show (for some reason a Western. Don't know why). Despite some color limitations it was gorgeous; and honestly as a modern viewer you could be forgiven for waiting the dialogue to kick in. It just looked so modern! And there Anna May Wong was, as real and beautiful as ever! In gorgeous gowns for good measure!
In 1926 Fairbanks made "The Black Pirate". Sound finally advanced the following year with "The Jazz Singer". A LOT of early talkies were made in both color and sound. Unfortunately today one of the three elements tends to be lost. Both sound and color took a lot of work to make happen: color involved extremely hot lights, while sound at the time involved really sensitive honking mics that actors couldn't really move away from. And yet somehow they made musicals anyways. So what happened?
In 1929 Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were working on what would be his first real talkie and her second talkie, "Taming of the Shrew". Talkies had taken over, but color was still catching on full stream. The pair intended to make the film as a talkie with color, and costumes and sets were designed accordingly. But into pre-production (ya know while their marriage was falling apart) they decided it would be too expensive even for UA. So color never happened, and "Taming of the Shrew" went down as another early talkie. Then right after it premiered the stock market crashed and color became WAAAY to expensive for anyone (film attendance would soon drop 80% from the pre crash days). It basically went on hold until "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind" put it back on the radar literally 10 years later.
However its a HUGE shame. "Taming of the Shrew" is usually mocked by people who haven't seen it, or people who assume its full of horrible accents and early talkie cliches. Actually its not that bad (though we can all agree here and now: Mary Pickford's Shakespeare accent, in all 5 minutes of the film, is atrocious). Had it been in color, and the stock market had not crashed, who knows how far film would have gone in the 1930s...instead of restricting with the Hays Code and not making color standard till the 50s.
Gagman66 is the finder of this clip. Mary Eaton (sister of Doris Eaton), Hope Hampton, Mae Murray, and a few other ladies (and possibly Jackie Coogan) make appearances batting their eyes for the camera. Mae strikes me as one of the oddest cases, mostly because she's doing that vamp thing and it doesn't work so well in color. But HOLY CRAP ITS MAE MURRAY IN COLOR! And its mind blowing. Once again she seems more real, more human. Like you could run into her tomorrow and she'd mutter something about being a Princess and not having time for you.
Oh if only we had more of the 20s!
5 comments:
Oh. My. God.
Is that Mary Eaton in the beginning? Whoever it was, I'm in love with her.
And I adore the flickery effect - it makes the clip look like a dream that you can just barely remember, or (bear with the cutesiness), like a "Somewhere In Time" moment when you're cramming every memory in that you can before you have to leave that world forever.
Pity there's no sound, though, or that I'm no lip reader. I'd love to know what Mae Murray is saying while they film her!
Yes I'm pretty sure it goes Mary Eaton, Hope Hampton, a slew of unidenfitieds, and Mae Murray.
Mary was gorgeous, a well known Follies girl. I think the flickery effect comes from the lighting vs new fangled color camera process. It seemed to get worse with Mae.
LOL I imagine Mae said something about needing some cocktail or man...she had the pouty diva thing down after all!
Nice clips. There was a school of thought at the end of the silent era, that it was the lack of reality in silent films that constituted their artistic quality and that adding sound and color as realism rendered film less artistic, in a sense reducing them to canned theater. I don’t think anyone believes that anymore but I do think silent films like “Intolerance,” “The General” and “Sunrise” are operating on a much different level than “The Godfather” or “Lawrence of Arabia.” Not necessarily better, but different. I like early color processes for their lack of realism, even three-strip Technicolor offers a distorted image with its oversaturated almost garish wealth of color. I agree with the previous commentator’s description of the clip as being dreamlike, it is more like a painting of Mae Murray than a snapshot to me. If it were possible to view the 1920s via modern filmmaking practices I’m not sure I’d like the result. I prefer the idealized and distorted view that comes to us from the surviving films. As you noted in silents Garbo is a goddess, in talkies, not so much. I also agree with our esteemed blogstress that “Taming of the Shrew” is an unfairly maligned film, essentially reduced to a joke about Sam Taylor. I think it was actually one of the most entertaining films of the year and DF is quite good in it.
Agreed Pillbert! Some silents, like a Chaplin or Lon Chaney film, would almost be ruined by color or sound (of note Chaplin only made one color film, one he did not appear in all for but a second: A Countess in Hong Kong).
However now you got me thinking, wouldn't have been trippy had they done BOTH at the same time on a much grander scale then what really happened? I can imagine a film like "Girl Shy" or "My Best Girl" being in either only color or color and sound without losing magic. In fact maybe I'm insane, but I think Mary's films would have done well in color..at least more so than Charlie. Same for the flapper styled films (Clara Bow, but perhaps not Louise Brooks).
One that really gets me is Rudolph Valentino. I've seen a lot of well done and poorly done colorizations of his photos, and obviously I consider Kevin Scrantz the best (a huge 36 inch poster of his Rajah coloring hangs on my wall). However it is very hard for me to picture Valentino as real...much like Louise Brooks and Garbo he belongs to that other worldly black and white era.
As for the delicious Taming of the Shrew I did ask MPI about it at length. They said they thought the Sam Taylor thing was a myth, though it won't die. They also said though the film is public domain they don't know if anything beyond the 60s reissue exists though it COULD. A restoration is sorely needed (as with all of Mary's talkies except Secrets)...that 60s added music just BLARES when contrasted with the vocals.
Oops I think you're right Mark, I mistook the first girl because she kinda reminded me of the woman on the poster for that film.
Mary Eaton must be the one with the hat and short hair...right?
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